Time Enough
by Adela H
Summary: Closure. That's all I needed and since Audrey wouldn't give it to me, I had to give it to myself. I hope others can find closure in this fic as well. Starts off where the book ends.


_Thursday, July 24, 2053 (Henry is 43, Clare is 82)_

Clare

I turn, and he is there, finally. Henry, tall, and standing and very much alive. As I rise from my chair he stairs at me, as if trying to figure out who this person is, and suddenly I see the realization dawn on him. By that time I am in his arms, breathing him in, remembering what it felt like to have him with me, to have him love me and to feel his heart beating inches from my own.

After what seems a lifetime, he leans back to look into my face. He is smiling, and I am smiling and I am happy again.

"Clare, I—"

"Henry, I have waited for you for a long time." I say, in my berating voice, the voice I used when little Henry and Philip would stay the summer and not obey me.

"I'm sorry, Clare. I always try to come to you."

I want to tell him everything, tell him about the accident that winter that left him without feet. I want to tell him about his death, but I feel our time together is too precious for words, for explanations and regrets. In my silence Henry looks across the room briefly and his eyes fall on the portrait of himself that sits above the fireplace.

"What happened?" He asks, moving towards it.

I stare at it, the likeness very close to the living model. Alive! And I remember the bout of loneliness and anger that overtook me the New Year's after Henry died.

"I was angry at you for dying, so I ripped it." I begin to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Angry at the Henry here and now for something he has yet to do. The tear in the paper goes from the top to the bottom, straight down the middle, splitting Henry into two halves.

"Dying?" He looks alarmed at me and I feel the pit in my stomach begin to open up again.

"You'll find out sooner or later." I disengage myself from him most reluctantly, and walk across the room to the bookshelf. On the bottom is a very old and worn out album. I open it up to a page that has news paper clippings and hand it to him to read his own obituary.

"Oh, Clare." He looks at me as if he wants to say sorry, to apologize for his own death.

I smile, "I scoured the news paper archives for any mention of you." I say, flipping the pages. "I managed to find a few that fit your description."

Henry reads on and laughs, "The police never did find out how I was always able to escape their clutches."

Henry

I stare at Clare, older and more beautiful. The lines etched onto her face from a long life. I smile and pray that she didn't miss me too much.

"Alba would always tell me about your visits to her." Clare starts to say. We are sitting on the porch swing, looking out towards the lake, I am flipping through a photo album with pictures of my Alba and her children. "I would always to get so jealous of her and wonder why you never came to see me."

"Clare, if I could have controlled it I would never have left your side, not for one second."

Clare smiles and pats my leg, the lets her hand rest there.

"Are Henry and Philip…" I stare down at a picture of my two grandchildren when they were young, around ten.

"No, they don't travel. Kenderick found the cure, but it has to be given at a molecular level. Alba doesn't travel now any more. Kenderick thought that perhaps if you had aged… Well, he just thought that as the body slows down the time traveling stops."

The sun is beginning to set, casting long shadows across the land and I wish I could stay, but longing to return. This Clare who needs me, who has waited for me for years and years and the Clare in my present, who deserves every minute I can give her. I asked Clare if she knew how long I would stay but she shook her head. I wrote her a letter about this meeting, but left no date, or specific details. Sounds just like me to leave out everything important.

Clare turns her head to look up at me and I set the book aside and wrap her in my arms, and kiss her gently on each cheek then on the lips. She rests her head on my shoulder and I can feel her body relax into my mine.

"I think I know why you're here, now." Clare murmurs as sleep slowly takes her.

"Why is that?" I ask, but there is nothing but silence. I slowly rock us in the chair and suddenly something is different.

"Clare?" I ask, but there is no response. I pull her away and she is smiling, but she is not here. Somewhere out there our two spirits are re-united, possibly converged into one. I pick her lifeless body up and carry her into the house, laying her gently on the bed. I can feel it now, the pull that throws me across time, and I feel myself slowly fade away.


End file.
